Free Theology Books for Kindle

This past weekend I made the plunge into the digital reader world. I probably wouldn’t have done so if I hadn’t received a Christmas gift card earmarked for a Kindle purchase (thanks mom! – and no you’re never too old to thank your mother in public). With it, I purchased the Kindle Touch 3G/Wi-fi and so far it seems the thing I like most is the availability of massive amounts of free books. Works that would otherwise cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars are now readily at my fingertips for free. I have not had the chance to play with any of the third-party document convertors yet (from .pdf) so the volume of free material will likely increase substantially. That said, I couldn’t really find a site that consolidated the available theology books that are free and in Kindle readable format, so I thought I would provide what I’ve found so far. Obviously, most if not all of these are from a reformed theological perspective. I don’t know if Charles Finney, Joel Osteen, or Rob Bell are free and if so they still cost too much.

From the Kindle Store:

This may be an obvious first place to start and I kind of doubted that I’d find anything worthwhile here, but I was wrong. Below are some of the ones I’ve found more interesting. Again, I haven’t read these (with the exception of the ESV and Pilgrim’s Progress), but they are free.

Hugh Miller – The Testimony of the Rocks or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed

A.W. Tozer – The Pursuit of God

Isaac Watts – A Short Essay Toward the Improvement of Psalmody Or, An Enquiry How the Psalms of David Ought to Be Translated into Christian Songs, and How Lawful and … Gospel, for the Use of the Christian Church.

There are others too, though perhaps from more obscure authors.

From Monergism.com (there’s more on this site than what I’ve included below)

Augustine – Anti-Pelagian

Louis Berkhof – Introduction to the New Testament

Louis Berkhof – Summary of Christian Doctrine

Loraine Boettner – The Reformed Faith

Loraine Boettner – The Atonement

Loraine Boettner – The Trinity

Thomas Brooks – Heaven on Earth

John Bunyan – Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

John Bunyan – The Holy War

John Bunyan – The Pilgrim’s Progress

John Bunyan – Saved by Grace

John Calvin – The Institutes of Christian Religion

John Calvin – The Prayers of John Calvin from his commentary on Hosea

William Cunningham – The Pelagian Controversy

William Cunningham – The Socinian Controversy

William Cunningham – The Arminian Controversy

Jonathan Edwards – Christian Knowledge

Jonathan Edwards – Treatise on Grace

John Flavel – A Blow at the Root of Antinomianism

John Gill – Of Effacacious Grace

Steve Hays – Answering Common Objections to Christianity from Skeptics

Steve Hays – God’s Canon

J. Gresham Machen – Christianity and Liberalism

Alexander Maclaren – Sermons on 1&2 Kings

A.W. Pink – Saving Faith

A.W. Pink – Regeneration or the New Birth

A.W. Pink – Divine Covenants

J.C. Ryle – Alive or Dead

C.H. Spurgeon – All of Grace

Cornelius Van Til – Defending the Faith

B.B. Warfield – Augustine and the Pelagian Controversy

From Puritanlibrary.com (this site is loaded with content, unfortunately much, if not all, is un-indexed and there are typos/formatting issues. However, the content is there.) Note: I didn’t download everything, there is a lot more.

The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes

William Gurnall – The Christian in Complete Armour

The Complete Works of Thomas Manton

The Complete Works of John Bunyan

The Complete Works of John Owen

The Complete Works of Jonathan Edwards

John Owen – Expositions of the Epistle to the Hebrews (4 Volumes)

There is a good chance I already have more books than I could read in a lifetime, but since I didn’t pay anything for them, they’ll be handy resources to refer to and learn from. So far, the rule of thumb I’m taking is if the price of the Kindle book is comparable to the hard copy, then I’m going hard copy most every time. However, if I can get great value in the Kindle version, such as the complete works of John Owen for $2.99 (hard copy +$325), then it’s well worth it. Having the Kindle less than a week, I can confidently say I prefer the print copy, but I think there are obvious advantages, such as price, convenience, storage, and searchability, that warrant a Kindle investment.